The Duchess of Sussex’s father, Thomas Markle, has been admitted to hospital after suffering a stroke.
He was rushed to hospital early on Tuesday morning.
Karl Larsen, who has a YouTube channel with Mr Markle, confirmed the news to the PA news agency.
Last month Mr Markle, 77, said he was planning to fly to the UK in June for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in the hope of seeing his estranged daughter and the grandchildren he has never met, Archie and Lilibet.
He told GB News he had a right to meet his grandchildren, adding: “I would like to meet with Prince Charles and thank him for walking my daughter down the aisle, and also to meet and talk with him because I think we have a lot in common now. We’ve pretty much both been ghosted by our children.”
Mr Markle also criticised Harry and Meghan for not bringing Archie and Lilibet with them when they visited the Queen this month before their appearance at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands.
“Not bringing the children was like another slap in the face to the Queen,” he said.
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“It was very rude and the wrong thing to do. It makes no sense at all…I don’t know if it’s Meghan or if it’s Harry but the Queen should have every right to see her great-grandchildren and I should have the right to see my grandchildren.”
Personal letters and legal battles
In the days leading up to the couple’s wedding in 2018, it was revealed Mr Markle had staged paparazzi photographs of himself.
He was ultimately unable to come to the wedding as he was recovering from heart surgery – and his relationship with the Sussexes became increasingly fraught.
A letter between him and his daughter then became the subject of a tense legal battle.
Mr Markle has also said he is hoping to face Meghan and her “ginger husband” in court as part of a defamation case brought by the duchess’s half-sister.
She alleges in court documents that Meghan made “false and malicious lies” about her during the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview and in the Finding Freedom biography.
Samantha Markle said this subjected her to “humiliation, shame, and hatred on a worldwide scale”.
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Mr Markle has sided with his older daughter and said he would be “thrilled” to be able to defend her.
Meghan said in her Oprah interview that she was an only child and had only seen her half-sister a handful of times throughout her childhood.
